


Pushing Up Daisies

by AbyssianSoul, AnxiouslyDreaming



Series: The Greenhouse [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Best Friends, Constant Fluff, Eventual Smut, Friends to Lovers, Implied Eren Yaeger/Jean Kirstein, Implied Reincarnation, M/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-24
Updated: 2013-11-24
Packaged: 2018-01-02 12:15:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1056658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbyssianSoul/pseuds/AbyssianSoul, https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnxiouslyDreaming/pseuds/AnxiouslyDreaming
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“He’s really never mentioned what or who they’re for? It’s a really…precise grouping of flowers.”<br/>“No. I’ve asked before…every time he comes in. It’s almost as if…he’s not sure either sometimes.”</p><p>An AU in which Marco works at a flower shop, he and Jean attend rival colleges, and emotions and cuteness both run high.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pushing Up Daisies

Amber eyes narrowed at a glowing phone screen, concentration so consuming and intense it was nearly frightening. For some it actually was. A couple walking into the coffee shop nearly jumped as they saw him look up at them.

Marco Bodt felt his own eyes crinkle, lips curling into a bright smile as he watched the boy sip at his to-go mug.

A few weeks ago, Marco had started part time work in the florist across the narrow street from the little coffee house, like he did every school year. At first, he’d merely considered the young man an attractive addition to the outdoor furniture. Then he began to notice him at nearly the same time, every day.

Things had gone downhill from there. Marco had been caught ogling more than once, and such a thing wasn’t usually in his character, especially when he was supposed to be working. His coworkers had told him the young man’s name was Jean, but Marco seemed to miss him every time the other came into the shop, which was apparently a common occurrence.

As Marco leaned his head against the broom in his hands, the young man dropped the electronic device into his pocket and pulled his sleeves over his palms before picking up his coffee to drink it.

At the incredible level of adorable coming from the formerly so severe figure, Marco couldn’t resist putting a hand over his mouth. He felt pleasantly warm, as though he were the one drinking the steaming beverage. He heard a rustle behind him as his boss exited the back room, carrying a stunning arrangement of stargazer lilies and white roses.

Mike Zacharius wasn’t one for much talk; Marco had come to understand this early on in his employment. The man sniffed once and then shifted his glance toward the coffee shop; a small smirk graced his features.

Marco sighed, “Yes yes, I know.”

“Mm.” He sniffed the lilies and then smiled, heading back to work on another arrangement, or so Marco assumed. He set the broom against the wall and began checking the numbers of single flowers in their displays.

That is, until he glanced over at the coffee shop again.

He straightened and couldn’t hide a laugh as Jean had apparently been sent something incredibly annoying on his phone. His eyebrows and nose did the most unbelievably cute thing when he got angry. Marco was surprised he didn’t throw the phone into the street.

The little bell rang over the shop door and a redheaded woman walked in, waving at Marco with a beaming smile, “Good morning!”

The young man she addressed was caught up in the way Jean haphazardly swiped at his phone, nearly jabbing at it, presumably ardently typing. Marco marveled at how the other man’s lips tightened even in playful annoyance, bringing out the sharp angles of his face.

A slim hand broke Marco’s trance as it waved it front of his fixed gaze.

He jumped and it took a moment for his eyes to focus on her, a blush suddenly darkening his freckled cheeks, “P-Petra! I’m so sorry! I was-”

Mike reemerged from the work room - this time with a wrapped bouquet of yellow alstroemeria, white syringa, great bindweed and a single, prominent sunflower. He carefully placed it in one of the massive refrigerator-like coolers behind the check out counter, the ones that housed their more expensive, impressive arrangements. He looked at Petra.

“He was staring.” He nodded toward the coffee shop.

Petra’s eyes lingered on that specific bouquet before she blinked toward the shop and smiled a little. The expression was laced with a particular - somehow knowing - sadness, “It’s that day isn’t it?”

Mike just nodded. Marco sighed, frowning curiously at the bundle in the fridge.

“He’s really never mentioned what or who they’re for?” He asked, looking at them, focusing on the sunflower. For some reason it made him smile, but tugged mournfully at his heart all at once. “It’s a really…precise grouping of flowers.”

Mike’s eyes slid to him at his insight, and he nodded in something that Marco thought might have been approval. He then withdrew from the conversation by heading toward the rear of the shop again, much to Marco’s consternation. He felt his boss knew more than he was letting on.

Petra shook her head, “No. I’ve asked before…every time he comes in.” The young woman tilted her head back, staring at nothing, her expression pensive, “It’s almost as if…he’s not sure either sometimes.”

Marco glanced to the poor young man who was entirely unaware he was the topic of their conversation. He was beginning to get up. He slid his phone back into the pocket of his hoodie and grabbed his coffee, taking a quick swig as he walked down the street at a speed that seemed entirely unnecessary. He was probably on a caffeine high. For some reason, Marco found that charming and his smile warmed, head tilting unconsciously.

Petra snapped her fingers at him this time, “Come on, Earth to Marco! We’re about to open. Get the roses out, okay? Oh, and put the sign up.” She donned her green smock and smirked at the freckled boy, her tone teasing, “If you get a few of the special orders done, maybe I’ll let you _check out_ Jean when he stops by for his bouquet.”

He nodded, blushing but eyes widening, smile threatening to bounce around the little store in glee. He playfully saluted, “Yes ma’am!”

She laughed at him, though still gave him a look and a pointed stare toward the nearly empty rose buckets. He chuckled at her as he went to fill them quickly. Finished with that, he checked the clock and then turned the little wooden sign on the door to OPEN.

Minutes later, the bell chimed and Petra’s bright voice piped up with his, “Good morning, welcome to Pushing Up Daisies!”

 

The courtyard of Trost College was just beginning to see its share of concentrated hustle and bustle, a sure sign that early morning classes were soon to be underway. Far more simplistic in its layout than that of their extravagant rivals at Sina University, the sprawling, green lawn was heavily decorated with students decked out for Pride Week. Everyone’s apparel bore the school’s colors and winged insignia and not much else for as far as the eye could see.

But of course, it took being slapped in the face with a sea of green, blue and white to drive home the fact that Pride Week had slipped Jean Kirschtein's otherwise preoccupied mind. Even as he hurriedly shoved past people, frantically searching for any sign of someone he might know, Jean couldn’t help mentally kicking his own ass for sticking out like a sore thumb in his red hoodie.

Lost in his thoughts, Jean nearly managed to trample the outer edges of a green and white flowerbed at the center of the courtyard. Regaining his footing, the sight of flowers quickly brought him back to the task at hand. Uncharacteristically wide eyes scanning the crowd, he managed to spot a familiar brown mop. Jean sneered slightly to himself, checking the time on his phone.

Half an hour until class.

“Fucking great,” he muttered under his breath and in all of his overly stimulated glory, Jean grudgingly sped up behind one of the last people he enjoyed asking a favor of.

“Jaeger,” he called out, maybe a little too kindly for his liking. “Do me a solid?”

Laying it on thick probably wasn’t going to work with Eren, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

“I need to get to Utopia Park and back before photography. Gimme a ride?”

The brunet didn’t move a muscle, his back remaining to Jean.

“But we gotta stop at the flower shop first. It’ll be like five minutes. I swear. Well. Five minutes in the flower shop. Then you can just lose me at The U and take off right back here.”

Nothing. Jean’s eye twitched.

“Fuck, man! Don’t be a cocksmith. I need to do this _now_ before the park gets crowded. You don’t even need to stick around this time! I’ll just book it back myself. I can make it in time for class if you just—”

Jean rolled his eyes and bounced on his heels impatiently, finally opting to reach out and snag the bike helmet from beneath Eren’s arm to get his attention.

The action yanked the headphones from the brunet’s ears and he yelped, “Ow! _Shit!_ ”

He whirled around, ignoring the widening circle of space between them and the other students as he noticed Jean. The guy pissed Eren off just by breathing half the time. It didn’t help that Eren was the farthest thing from a morning person. Blue green eyes narrowed sharply and he snarled, “What the hell’d you do that for?!”

Crossing his arms over his chest, Eren Jaeger stared at Jean with fury barely contained in his gaze; most definitely not a morning person. Regardless, Pride Week had _not_ gone forgotten by him, as he wore a green hoodie emblazoned with the school logo. A fact he decided to mention as he held out a gloved hand for his helmet.

“You forget what week it is, Kirschtein?”

Jean instinctively made a move to turn away at the question but stopped himself, his fight-or-flight response a little more jazzed than usual thanks to his daily doubleshot ritual.

“I had other shit on my mind. Fight me about it.”

He quickly dismissed the jab, yanking his red hood down self-consciously as he shoved the helmet back into Eren’s grasp. Glossing over his hand and shoving it into his chest would’ve been more Jean’s usual speed, but he knew he didn’t have any time to waste. Getting into one of their usual tiffs would do more harm than good at this very moment, especially when he was trying to kiss ass.

“You look…festive.” Jean’s poor attempt at a compliment sounded very unsure and the flat, miffed look on his face didn’t do him any favors as far as selling it went. He waved his hands in a panic, getting himself back on track.

“Dude, did you hear a thing I said? Shop. The U. Need a ride. Tick tock. I’ll shine your shoes, brush your hair, change your diaper, fuck, I don’t know, can you just—”

Eren rolled his eyes at the shitty compliment. Taking back the helmet, he started to walk despite his following sarcasm, “Yeah. I heard you. With headphones on. And music playing. Early in the morning. Stupid fucker…” The last two words were a grumpy grumble.

Jean stamped one foot for emphasis, unlocking his phone screen and shoving the clock in Eren’s face. Words were flying out of his mouth at a rate that he’d been surprised Eren could keep up with.

“Just Point A, Point B, and you’re home free. You can literally ditch me at the park this time. I’ll—I’ll piss on the curb, stand near it, and let you splash me as you peel out. There’s gonna be _way_ too many people there by lunchtime, I don’t wanna be that guy everyone’s staring at, it already happened that one time and that was—”

Eren pushed his phone away dismissively, opening his mouth to give a snarky reply before Jean rattled off the last bit.

Understanding briefly passed over his face, and his eyes narrowed while his jaw tightened. With an exasperated sigh he rested his helmet against his shoulder as he started walking again. “You’re giving me a fucking headache and it’s not even noon yet. How much coffee you have today, dumbass?”

Jean sucked his teeth and gave an incredulous shrug, his entire body reacting along with it as he effortlessly kept up with Eren’s pace, maybe even having to reel himself in at times so as to not speed ahead of him. The guy was clearly bug-eyed and wired for sound, but he still tried desperately to keep his attitude in check long enough to maybe tug at Eren’s heartstrings.

“Like three doubleshot lattes!” Two black fingernails were thrust immediately into Eren’s face as Jean fumbled to pocket his phone, nearly missing from the amount of jittering he was doing. He shook his head and popped a third finger up to rectify his mistake, arching an eyebrow with a speedy mutter. “AndaMonster.”

“I didn’t sleep last night thinking about today and I _really_ can’t miss this class so I went a little overboard trying to stay alert and one thing led to another and I think I can feel my heartbeat in my teeth and— ”

Growling in frustration, Jean jumped out in front of Eren to stop him dead in his tracks.

“You know I’m not usually like this,” he muttered with a suddenly darkened expression, low enough for it to only be audible between the two of them, glancing around almost paranoid.

“I just—I gotta get this out of my system every couple of weeks.” Jean blinked down at Eren, eyes narrowing to wounded slits.

“You still think I’m crazy, don’t you?”

Thick brows furrowed, the slight sympathy in his gaze nearly overwhelmed by anger. The anger was mostly directed at the presence of that sympathy in the first place.

“Yeah, you’re fucking nuts is what I think.” He grumbled, feeling a little vindictive due to the time of day, lack of food and Jean actually daring to try and make him give a shit, “Who visits a nonexistent grave and gives an imaginary dead person flowers?”

He instantly felt bad for saying it, but he couldn’t let Jean see that. Eren’s lack of filter had gotten him into trouble more often than not, and was usually the start of his and Jean’s squabbles. Harshly shoving past him, Eren huffed as he headed toward the parking lot, mostly angry with himself.

"Who died and made you the fucking pope of my business? I'm not asking you to pass judgment, dipshit. I asked you for a ride," Jean called out with the first sign of legitimate ire gracing his features, hot breath visible in a huge puff before him.

Jean wasn't surprised by Eren's answer in the least bit. It was _Eren_ after all that he was receiving the commentary from and he _did_ ask, setting himself up for the accusation.

The way Jean froze in place and actually allowed Eren to barrel past him had less to do with the reality of his embarrassingly blind compulsion leaving someone else's lips and more to do with the brisk winter chill that picked up and danced right across his numb face.

It was strangely timed with Eren's criticism and the concurrence was unsettling for Jean, who was probably reading too far into things as usual. But clearly if he'd let himself get this deep into such an anomalous routine, overthinking wasn't all that farfetched for a guy like him.

“If it gets you off my case right now, hurry the hell up. If I’m late to anatomy _again_ , Dr. Death will cut points right off my grade. And probably illustrate exactly what part of it she’s slicing off.”

Eren paused briefly, “And fucking lay off the caffeine, man. You’re shaking like one of those pussy rat dogs.”

Catching up to Eren in the blink of an eye, Jean was still running at 105% battery and all sorts of antsy, his snark cracking through the brownnosing.

"I dunno, man," Jean muttered to his feet, tugging his hood back up with a full body jolt. "Zoe might give you the points back if you tell her you're a serial killer or something. She's sick. Prolly wouldn't even turn you in. She'd take notes. Weave a masterpiece with your mouth."

Jean hoped the sharp departure from their previous topic would be enough to steer Eren in another direction as the both of them sidled up near his motorcycle.

A snort left Eren at the mention of their art anatomy professor. She’d gotten the title - among others - for her penchant of rambling about the vital spots in human bodies, how to exploit them and various other moderately creepy subjects. It was abundantly clear she was knowledgeable.

“Maybe you can talk her out of flunking me as payback.” Eren shoved on the black helmet (proudly bearing one of those school logo stickers that colleges hand out superfluously) and handed the extra one (dark gray, picked by Armin for myriad reasons) to Jean. Eren’s visor was open, so all Jean could see were habitually irritated green eyes.

Jean returned the look with a small, fluttering eye roll, giving Eren a few rapid nods that bled with ‘yeah right’.

The comparison between Jean and a froo-froo puppy crept up on him much slower than expected, his thought processes already firing on all cylinders elsewhere. He tugged at one of his small, faux ear gauges - an unconscious nervous tic he’d developed - scrambling for a delayed reaction.

"Dude. If you're comparing me to a chihuahua, I'm fuckin' touched."

“You would like those bug-eyed, jittery things.” He shut the visor with a snap at the same time he turned the key in the ignition.

Jean hoisted himself up onto the seat behind him, making a soundless, obnoxious cross-eyed face at the back of Eren’s head to please himself as he secured his own helmet.

“Try not to pop a boner, alright?”

As Eren kicked the bike into gear, he laughed humorlessly, tone sardonic as possible, “Man, _that’ll_ be tough. Try not to get one yourself. That’s definitely something I don’t want to feel.”

“Hah.” In his dreams. Fighting back a snicker, Jean slid his arms around Eren’s waist as expected for support and scuttled up much closer than necessary. Pressing against his back just to grate his nerves, he threw his head on Eren’s shoulder and squealed in an exaggerated falsetto.

“But Eren, you’re so warm!”

A sharp elbow hit Jean squarely below the ribs, “Fuck you. Do that again, and you can walk to the park, asshat!”

Revving the engine, Eren didn’t wait for Jean’s response before roaring out of the parking lot.


End file.
